CHAPEL HILL -- Local leaders may have figured out how to bring sewer lines and better roads to the Rogers Road community -- build a new school there.

City school board members Pam Hemminger and Lisa Stuckey said Thursday they are looking at a site off Purefoy Road for a new elementary school.

The discussion is in its very early stages. But it needs to move quickly to open the school -- the district's 11th elementary school -- by 2010, Stuckey said.

The school could help solve a problem that has vexed local governments that want to build more affordable housing in the community.

Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County own the 164-acre Greene tract in the Rogers Road Study Area. They've designated 18 acres for housing and plan to keep the rest undeveloped. The problem is residents and a task force crafting a vision for the area oppose any new development there until the community gets sewer services.

Extending sewer lines could cost more than $20 million, Town Councilman Bill Strom said at a Thursday meeting of the Rogers Road Small Area Plan Task Force. No one knows how to pay for it, he said.

A new school would require sewer lines. It also would require wider roads and two ways of getting in and out, Stuckey said.

That could lower the cost of providing sewer to the Rogers Road community, as well as give residents better access to the rest of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Rogers Road carries 5,000 vehicles a day, up from 3,000 in 1990.

"There's not much land available for elementary schools," Hemminger said. The typical elementary takes up 14 acres, but the district could fit one on about half that if it were two stories like Scroggs Elementary School in Southern Village. That would also leave the rest of the 18 acres available for affordable housing.

"We're still just sort of in the middle of the process," added Stuckey, who serves on a committee that looks at the district's long-term construction needs. The next step is to bring it to the school board.

When that happens, the proposal will have the neighborhood's backing. Task force members strongly endorsed it at Thursday's meeting.

"I love the idea," said resident Neloa Jones.

Ruby Sinreich said she was excited about a new school leading to new roads connecting the Rogers Road neighborhood to the areas around it.

"Purefoy is real tiny and people live there," the former planning board chairwoman noted. "It is no way appropriate to use it as access to a bigger site."

Planners are looking at new possible north-south roads because any east-west roads would cut through environmentally sensitive areas and run into the railroad tracks on the eastern edge of the Rogers Road area.

But Sinreich would still like to see a connection east. Parts of Eubanks Road to the north are rural, and most of the traffic is heading east anyway, she said.

"It's hard, but it's not impossible," she said.

Carrboro Alderman Joal Hall Broun also supported the proposal.

Since integration, no schools have been built in predominantly black neighborhoods, she said. Neighborhoods that have schools tend to be more stable, she said.

"If the school board is interested in doing something positive for black neighborhoods, this is your opportunity to do so," she said.